Heart Fire (Celta Book 13) (2 page)

D
RUIDA
C
ITY
, C
ELTA

422 Years after Colonization
Early Spring

B
OOM! BOOM! BOOM! Three explosions shook the narrow two-story house, followed by an ominous whoosh and crackling.

Pinky, Antenn Moss’s cat, yowled in terror. Antenn used all his twelve-year-old speed to snag the cat and run from the kitchen.

Trif Clover met him in the hallway, her face pale with fear. “Fire. We can’t get out. Fire blocks both doors, windows, stairs.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she said, “I don’t know how to teleport.”

“Me, either,” Antenn said. His voice was high but didn’t shake or crack. Good. “You have Flair, psi power. Yell mentally to EVERYONE. I will, too. Neighbors will call.” The space between his house and others was narrow.

“I know the best place, this way.” He grabbed her hand and ran with her to a far corner of the mainspace, then put Pinky down. “There’s a little foundation crack here. Maybe we will be under the smoke.” He yanked Trif and tried to put her next to Pinky, but she was twenty and bigger and stronger. She pushed him down and curled around him like he did around Pinky.

Using a little Flair, Antenn widened the crack, hoping to pull more air in just for them, and he prayed, and yelled with his mind.

And listened to the fire eat its way to them.

This was no natural fire. Must have been firebombs. Though he was only twelve, enemies wanted him dead for what his brother had done. Was this revenge?

His home was gone. If he survived, he knew gut deep, bone deep, everything would change.

*   *   *

A
rough tongue rasped over his face, prickling his beard, and Antenn’s eyelids whipped open to see too-close Pinky whiskers and teeth. He grabbed his plump Fam and sat, panting from the nightmare that had been the past.

Bad dream
, Pinky sent telepathically. He could do that now. The cat had transformed to a Fam.

“Yeah.” Not surprising. That had been one of the most memorable experiences of Antenn’s life, and today, hopefully, would be another. He kicked off the covers and put Pinky down, not wanting any kneading paws on his lap. “Heading into the waterfall now.”

The small Fam’s nose wrinkled.
Time for breakfast!

“Not quite,” Antenn said, but saw his Fam trot to the door in the wall and out.

Padding to the waterfall room in his Family home, T’Blackthorn Residence, which he’d moved into the day after the fire, Antenn passed the tunic and trous he’d laid out for the day. Very professional cut, but sturdy enough and bespelled enough to handle tramping all over the site of the cathedral on the Varga Plateau.

The cathedral. He dragged in a deep breath, caught the smell of panic-sweat the dream had coated him with, and grumbled. Not a good way to start the day.

Very big day. If his clients signed the contract for the cathedral, Antenn would prove to all he was a valued member of Celtan society. His name would go down in history, Antenn Blackthorn-Moss, a FirstLevel Architect. He’d finally settled on Blackthorn-Moss instead of Moss-Blackthorn. Knew himself better.

Knew bone deep that today, everything could change.

*   *   *

I
know you desire my position, dear,” the High Priestess of GreatCircle Temple,
the
main priestess on the planet, said to Tiana Mugwort.

Tiana stumbled over a small rock in the meditation path. Her mentor’s comment caught her off guard. She’d been concentrating on keeping her new, expensive, and
white
formal robe from catching on some of the twiggy bushes along the trail instead of watching where she was going.

“Most FirstLevel Priestesses would be honored to have your position,” she said. No help for it, she’d have to use psi power, Flair, to coat her gown. She’d anticipated this career review would take place in an office instead of one of the winding paths near GreatCircle Temple.

With a huge, hopefully discreet breath, she used nearly the last of her Flair to protect her robe for a half septhour. Surely that would be enough. She’d spent her psi energy recklessly this morning with several teleportations before the meeting.

She’d thought there’d be tea and flatsweets. Instead she needed to catch up, both on the path and with the conversation.

Of course she shouldn’t have expected her own ambition to become the High Priestess—no matter how masked behind a quiet manner—to have been overlooked by the savvy woman.

“And despite the rumors, I am not ready to retire within the next few years.” The older woman, GrandLady Ulmaria D’Sandalwood, paused in their trek and smiled with good humor plumping her round cheeks, kindness showing in her sparkling dark-brown eyes. “I may never be ready to retire. Nonetheless, it is time to evaluate you for your next step up this career ladder you wish to pursue, yes?”

Warning! Tiana began to sweat even in the shade of the thick trunks of blossoming trees blocking the morning sun.

Ambition and spirituality didn’t often mix well, and everyone who’d chosen to become a priestess or priest knew it.

With great care, Tiana smoothed her gown away from the wild underbrush, hoping her spell would work to keep her gown from tangling. The robe had cost a full month’s salary and was appropriate for her work in formal rituals more than anything else.

Seeing the lady’s gaze on her, she straightened one of her long rectangular sleeves embroidered in gold with her rank as FirstLevel Priestess and her Family designation, mugwort leaves.

The High Priestess’s robe showed embroidery of her birth Family and her HeartMate’s Family. Both of those Families had much more clout than Tiana’s disgraced one.

That disgrace was a thorn in Tiana, spurring her
need
to reach the greatest pinnacle in their religion, one of the highest positions in their culture. She had to prove that she—and her Family—were honorable people. Her eyes stung as she glanced around the area that she wanted for her own—a permanent place in GreatCircle Temple. She’d wanted this ever since the Lady had come to her as a child, had walked with her in dreams, had called her to serve.

Now she and the High Priestess walked along one of the looping trails in the Temple environs, this one outside the manicured lawns and gardens, just beginning to show color. She knew the seasons of GreatCircle Temple and cherished them.

Soon the tall trees overhead and the hearty bushes would give way to a broader path through tall, dense hedges that would accommodate three, though Tiana didn’t think the High Priestess’s HeartMate, the High Priest, would be joining them. Tiana hoped not; she felt more unprepared than she’d anticipated.

Looking to her right she could see the Temple itself, her sanctuary, her heart’s home. “I don’t want to leave GreatCircle Temple and be transferred to another temple.” The statement spurted from her lips without passing her brain first, appalling her.

GrandLady D’Sandalwood’s plump hand swept over a bush full of tiny spring flowers, releasing a gentle scent that soothed, as it was meant to, even as Tiana’s mind raced to amend her words and mitigate her mistake.

But the High Priestess continued, “There have always been two paths to the top ranks of the priests and priestesses of Celta. One way is to stay here in GreatCircle Temple; the other is to prove your worth by rising as the priest or priestess of small to medium temples, then graduating to more influential ones. Then when the time comes to choose the next High Priestess your name is known.”

“I understand,” Tiana said, pushing her impatience with this conversation down, down, down. This was the next step on her life plan.

“Something you should also consider is that due to our rituals, the High Priest and High Priestess are sometimes mates. Either husband and wife or HeartMates. We find ourselves drawn to those in our profession.” The High Priestess paused delicately. “I believe you have a HeartMate.”

Tiana dredged up the expression she put on and the words she said every time that particular issue was raised. “Yes, but he hasn’t come looking for me.” She fought hard to keep the bitterness from her voice. She’d tried several times to connect with him emotionally and hadn’t been able to do so. “Because of the disgrace of my Family, perhaps.”

“Perhaps.” The other woman flicked her hand as if that event, the most influential and disastrous event in Tiana’s life, were of absolutely no matter. Tiana bowed her head to keep her irritation from showing, watching the trail they walked. Oh, yes, this extremely intelligent lady tested her.

“You don’t anticipate looking for your HeartMate?” the High Priestess asked, smiling and waving at some picnickers, then back to Tiana.

Tiana’s gaze shot to her mentor’s. “No . . . I didn’t . . . no!” Too forceful, dammit!

“A HeartMate is one of the greatest blessings of life, yet you turn your back on it? This concerns the High Priest and me.”

“I don’t know who he is. He doesn’t want me!” Tiana burst out. “He’d have come if he’d wanted me!”

The priestess’s curved and groomed brows lifted. “You know his mind and heart so well, then? You have such a strong bond you know this?”

“No.”

“So it is your mind and hurt that prevent you from searching for him.”

“I . . . I had not thought so.” Eyes prickling, fingers twitching with the need to fist them, sweat slithering down her spine, Tiana said in a low voice, “But you must be right. I will have to meditate on this.” She’d just given up on him, concentrated on her career. There weren’t really many couples, even HeartMates, that became priests and priestesses.

“Indeed.”

“And,” Tiana swallowed, adding in a tiny voice, “I will need more mentoring on this matter.” She faced an awful truth she hadn’t known inside her. “I will need a . . . steadier mind and emotions with regard to my HeartMate before I proceed with any search for him.” She’d need the support of not only her mentor, but her two best friends.

“I see.” The High Priestess gestured to the right-hand fork in the path that avoided the hedges and led back toward the Temple. Tiana wasn’t sure what that indicated. Her pulse bumped hard through her body. Had she just ruined her career?

The path had widened, and she moved to walk next to the High Priestess between garden beds showing shoots of green, tiny spears of hope that Tiana could no longer match.

A long moment of silence passed before Tiana raised her eyes, needing to see more of D’Sandalwood’s reaction. And found quiet contemplation . . . not at all what Tiana had expected.

“Lady?” she croaked.

“I am not She, not the goddess,” the priestess said. “Not today at this time. Her aspect is not within me. But I think we can leave this HeartMate matter to Her and Her Lord.”

That wasn’t a notion that sat well with Tiana, that the main deities of Celta might mix in her personal life. They had so many others to care for.

“They care for us all,” the priestess said. “And we Celtans believe in destiny in some things, do we not?”

“Yes, High Priestess.”

D’Sandalwood inclined her head. “Very well, we shall set aside the concern regarding interacting with your HeartMate for the moment, but you do know it is a point of growth that must be addressed in the future, don’t you?’

“Yes, GrandLady D’Sandalwood.” Tiana began to feel like the veriest novice instead of a priestess who’d been accepted into the highest rank, FirstLevel. She’d been an apprentice at the Temple: a journeywoman, third-level, then second-level priestess. Still she had more personal problems than she’d anticipated before she could progress in her career.

“So let us touch on the matter of your wish to become the highest priestess in our land . . . eventually.”

Tiana swallowed. The floral scent of spring blooms dried on her tongue like the sharpness of dying flowers.

“I don’t think you are ambitious in the right way, or for the right reasons.” The High Priestess sounded more severe.

Though all Tiana’s muscles clenched and her mind scrambled, she projected a relaxed manner as they strolled.

“You are very good at seeming serene,” said the priestess, a hint of admiration in her tone.